Success in the legislature is far from guaranteed. I would want to be sure there was a consensus across the Illinois homebrewing community that pursuing a change in the law is way to go before jumping into the legislative fray. Attempting to introduce a bill will certainly generate greater scrutiny of the activities of homebrewers and could have negative short (or possibly long) term consequences, depending on how long it takes to get a bill passed, which could be years. It really depends on the level of sympathy for the homebrewing community there is in the legislature, if the bill is seen as bipartisan, whether or not there is any opposition from lobbyists, and the willingness of the local homebrew community to get involved.

The Wisconsin Assembly is scheduled to vote on the homebrew bill SB 395 tomorrow, March 6. Last chance to contact Reps before the vote. See the Action Alert at http://bit.ly/xdXgUJ.

Also, a homebrew legalization bill is scheduled for a committee hearing in the Alabama House on Wednesday, March 7. We'll have an action alert going out tomorrow.

The Mississippi House has passed a bill to increase the allowable alcohol in beer from 5% to 8% and a similar bill has passed through two Senate committee hearings. Hopefully that bodes well for the homebrew bills in Mississippi.

The AHA sent an Action Alert to Alabama members this morning. House Bill 354 sponsored by Rep. Mac McCutcheon, to legalize homebrewing in the state has been scheduled for a hearing before the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee tomorrow, Wednesday, March 7. We are asking Alabama residents to contact the members of the committee and politely urge them to vote in favor of the bill. If it passes through the committee, it will be sent to the full House for a vote.

The AHA sent an Action Alert to Alabama members this morning. House Bill 354 sponsored by Rep. Mac McCutcheon, to legalize homebrewing in the state has been scheduled for a hearing before the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee tomorrow, Wednesday, March 7. We are asking Alabama residents to contact the members of the committee and politely urge them to vote in favor of the bill. If it passes through the committee, it will be sent to the full House for a vote.

WisconsinVote on the homebrew bill before the full Assembly that was supposed to take place on Tuesday March 6, was postponed a week. There is a chance the bill will be amended before the Assembly vote. If it is amended, it will have to go back to the Senate for a vote on the amended version. With the very limited time left in this session, it's possible that time will run out before the Senate has a chance to vote on an amended bill.

AlabamaThe homebrew legalization bill cleared the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee, so it now needs to be schedule for a vote before the full House.

MississippiAll three homebrew legalization bills that were filed this year (two in the House, one in the Senate) died in committee this past Tuesday, along with something like 69% of all bills filed in Mississippi this year.

All hope is not yet lost. According to Butch Bailey of Raise Your Pints (RYP), dead is not dead-dead. There is a remote chance that RYP will be able to get homebrew legalization added as a rider on a separate bill.

We just sent another Action Alert to the Alabama AHA members. With the homebrew bill HB 354 passing the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee, it is time to focus on the rest of the House Representatives. Given that last year's homebrew bill failed before the full House, it is imperative to educate the House Representatives and encourage their support of HB 354, so we are asking homebrewers to contact all of the Representatives. The Alahomebrewing.org group has put together an email list for the House, making it easy to send an email to all of the Representatives.

The Wisconsin homebrew bill was amended and passed by the Assembly this afternoon and was sent to the Senate, which was in session at the time and the amended version was passed by the Senate. I've never seen anything like it. The bill literally was passed within hours of the end of the session and for it to have gotten a vote by both chambers on the same day is truly astounding.

No way that could have happened without all of the calls and emails to legislators from Wisconsin homebrewers.

The only remaining step is for the Governor to sign the bill.

Congratulations to Wisconsin's homebrewers and particularly the members of the Wisconsin Home Brewers Alliance that led the effort to get the Wisconsin law changed!